More blathering and gibbering and blabbering from the weird corner of the asylum ...

(Above: well Pope David takes care of that issue - move along people, nothing more to be said about this one, except a bleak, hollow, post-ironic, satirical, mocking Sierra Madre laugh - and more of Pope David's excellent visions here).

Of course the pond was compelled.

Just as Abbott's hatchet men head out to revive memories of the coup and to muck rack and ask questions - bravely done Erica and Cory -  who should turn up attempting to sound statesmanlike, and in best Helen Lovejoy style, having an anxiety attack about the children, and the need to think about the children?

Oh dear, there's something deeply unnerving about that file photo. It's as someone's trying to turn a mug shot of a hardened criminal into some kind of noble campaigner against political correctness ...

Now the return of PMs is perennially fascinating for the pond.

This very week the pond had its news cycle interrupted on 24 by former Chairman Rudd, in a speech which managed to be both exceptionally dull yet full of the preening of old, and the pond marvelled at how this man could still be a thing.

Naturally the pond banned 24 from the house. How unseemly, and over dinner too ...

While attempting to sound decent and compassionate, Abbott too manages to work in a considerable number of dog whistles ...

Here's the opening gambit ...

It goes without saying that every child deserves a loving home. Further, it’s surely self-evident that government’s duty, as far as humanly possible, is to keep children safe in their homes. Yet all too often officialdom puts the rights of dysfunctional parents ahead of the rights of vulnerable children. The ideology of keeping children with their biological parents is plainly putting hundreds, if not thousands, of Australian children at extreme risk.

Oh dear, the brave man is attacking biological parents ...

But wait ...

Of course, the ideal is that children should grow up with at least one biological parent. 

But wait ...

And dysfunctional parents should be helped to turn their lives around so that they can adequately care for their children. But leaving children to parents with a proven record of neglect is the triumph of ideology over common sense. Worse, it’s the victory of politically correct fashion over decency and compassion. 

The pond found it hard to decipher, but it seems the former Chairman is proposing that blinkered conservatism and religious fundamentalism and the carry-on about the virtues of biological families is the new politically correct ...

That'll be news to the Pellists and the angry Sydney Anglicans ...

And even worse, Abbott hints that maybe there actually was a stolen generation ...

It’s true earlier generations were far too quick to remove children from their parents. Until the 1970s, tens of thousands of unmarried mothers were more or less forced to surrender their children for adoption. Official policy sometimes separated children from their parents simply because they were Aboriginal. But just because children were once too readily removed is no reason not to remove them at all; or to remove them only once they have been physically or mentally badly damaged.


Yes, the man's reverted to his state socialism of the Santamaria school ... so let's get back to paternal government intervention, because like, you know, Nauru and Manus Island ...

But here's the tragedy of a man plucked of his tail feathers, for use in the feather duster kept in the cupboard ...

As prime minister, I took the view that more people should have the chance to be parents, especially when there was every reason to think they’d be good ones. My government put new processes in place to help pros­pective parents more smoothly and quickly navigate the often needlessly complex processes of overseas adoption. It’s vital to guard against any possibility of children for sale, but it’s still hard to see why the average time to secure an overseas adoption should have blown out to five years. 
Meanwhile, local adoption remains the responsibility of the states. At the Council of Australian Government, premiers and chief ministers have committed to making adoption easier, but turning good intentions into better practice remains a challenge. Parents shouldn’t have their kids stolen through misguided policy; but children shouldn’t have their childhood stolen either, through policy no less wrongheaded. 

There's something particularly poignant about that "As prime minister, I took the view ..."

Now Abbott may take any view he likes, but shouldn't he be furiously scribbling "As an irrelevant backbencher and as a nonentity, while the new emperor sweeps through Indonesia, I take the view ..."?

Will these attempts at rehabilitation work?

Clearly the reptiles of Oz are doing the decent thing, and doing their best, making room at the inn. Clearly the politically correct supporters of biological parents will be displeased. Clearly supporters of gay marriage will be pleased at the news it's wrong to place a holy emphasis on biological parents. Clearly Jeremy Sammut will be pleased, because much of the piece is dedicated to giving his book his plug.

And clearly judging from the comments, there are a loyal few who view the father of the gulags and its treatment of children as a martyr in exile, just waiting to return from his own form of Elba Island ...

So that Cory and Erica might once more stalk the land in triumph, and we might experience our very own second hundred days ... or however long Chairman Rudd lasted in his return from the wilderness.

Wondrous, amazing scenes ...

Meanwhile, the pond would like to report a dire breach of security.

It goes without saying that the pond was immediately attracted to Akker Dakker's latest splash.

There's something intrinsically appealing about older men shouting at clouds, people on lawns or the young, especially if one contemplates the wayward youth of Hanoi Piers or a conga line of white powder sniffers ...

Grow up Stralia! Yeah, you, who you looking at, grumpy face?

What a pitch. But of course if you click on that splash, you cop this:

Poor Barry Humphries, things must be tough for a worn-out dame.

Now the weak of heart might flinch at "Only subscribers can access our premium articles and features", and might even believe that Akker Dakker is a journalist they know and trust.

Well there are some who still think Hitler was okay, but enough of Godwin's Law jokes - remember to brush up on your Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe -  because it's time to report that dire security breach.

You see, if you head off to Akker Dakker's blog, there it is. The journalist you know and trust laid out for free. Not a shekel, not a dime, not a farthing needs to head off to chairman Rupert's coffers ...

It's such a literal transcription that you even get the layout details:

News_Image_File: Young Australians attracted to the left wing parties are voting for a tax burden that will handicap them for the rest of their lives.

It turns out that it's just as well to jump the fence and forage on the illegal grass. The pond reported on monomania and delusional repetition in the land of Murdoch, and Akker Dakker offers yet another splendid example:

Away in la-la land, the two left wing parties are firmly bogged in forms of Neanderthal socialism that rightfully belong in the museum of failed philosophies. 
Yet they are both championed by the monolithic ­taxpayer-funded state broadcaster, the ABC, and the terminally challenged anti-capitalist publisher Fairfax, and, according to the surveys, are the parties of choice for young Australians. 
Forget turkeys voting for Thanksgiving — or Christmas. Young Australians attracted to the left wing parties are voting for a tax burden that will handicap them for the rest of their lives. 
Unless the government is able to achieve meaningful reforms to welfare spending now, Australians who are now in their 20s will be saddled with unsustainable debts which are inevitably going to make their 40s and 50s ­unbearable.

People are expected to pay for this kind of harumphing? Where's the leather chairs and the glasses of port?

No wonder Mike Carlton tweeted ...

And this ...

You can catch the links here, but back to the blabber machine du jour.

You see, the trouble with Akker Dakker these days is that he has an attention deficit syndrome, and so when given the opportunity, he manages to sound like a somnambulist doing automatic writing, so predictable are his one liners ...

Homosexual marriage is a non-issue beyond the inner-urban areas of the nation’s ­cities where the chattering classes dominate the media. 
When Shorten mentions climate change, he’s referring to the unreliable theory that global temperatures have been affected by mankind. 
None of the modelling produced to support this claim has accurately predicted the global climate over the past 30 years. 
The women’s rights campaign is such a First World issue that the shrill activists can rightly be condemned for ignoring the unfashionable reality of the total discrimination against women in almost all Muslim societies. The sisterhood is essentially white, over-educated and middle-class. 
A better university system would see the removal of the left wing propagandists from the education system. 
Youth wages are held back by the socialists, as is international development (unless its funded by taxpaying capitalists), and animal welfare is largely a photo opportunity for activists. 
Experienced grown-ups know that good policy may be tough but populist feel-good policy is generally no solution. 
If young Australians want to enjoy a nation that looks anything like today’s when they grow older, they will have to start growing up now.

Talk about a doddery old fart in serious decline, even as a paid professional ranter, culminating with that line about "experienced grown-ups", as if Akker Dakker is a grown-up, when he still scribbles and clearly thinks as a child, and has yet to give away childish things or childish petulance ...

And punters are expected to pay for this?

The pond has said it before, and will say it again.

It's time for the Terrorists to shut down the blogs. If they really want the punters to pay, they need to deny them easy access ...

Then let's see how many young people are willing to pay for the pleasure of listening to chalk scratch on a blackboard ... and how many prefer the sounds of silence, and a little tranquility.

But where, you ask - or if you don't, the pond will ask for you - does Akker Dakker get his inspiration?

Well another of the pond's vices is to check in regularly on the thoughts of that other chairman.

And it's a marvel to behold. Never has a man copped so much abuse on twitter and yet he persists in sticking his head up above the parapets.

He's either a right royal trooper, or a total doofus and glutton for punishment.

Here's one sample, arising from the recent GOP debate, and the chairman still being blindly infatuated with Dr Ben and his pyramids ...

And all sorts of crazies flocked to his account when he did a follow up ...

... as you can see here.


Second thoughts? That's to suggest he actually managed some first thoughts, as if love for Dr Ben was a thought ...

Why does he do it? Why dos he regularly hang himself and his senility out to dry? Carrying on just like an Akker Dakker ...

Well the pond has a theory. The chairman has now spent so long in the echo chamber of Fox that all this carry on seems natural ... but the dumbing down of the GOP to the level of the Carsons and the Trumps can be directly attributed to the dumbing down of America by Fox. And, thanks to the chairman imbibing the kool aid, his dumb displays on Twitter ...

All that's left is comedy, with thanks to C and L and CC ...